Accrington Pals
Last Update 05-Mar-2008
by - Peter Whelan
From 5th November to 10th November 2007
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Presented by - NonentitiesLocation - Main HouseStandard Ticket PricesCurtain Up 7.30pm |
We would like to give a special thanks to the1st Kidderminster Boys Brigadefor their assistance. |
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The Accrington Pals is probably the best remembered of the battalions raised in the early months of the First World War in response to Kitchener's call for a volunteer army. Groups of friends from all walks of life in Accrington and its neighbouring towns enlisted together to form a battalion with a distinctively local identity. In its first major action, the battalion suffered devastating losses in the attack on Serre on 1st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme
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This lyrical and absorbing play tells their story. Their experiences in the trenches are contrasted with those of the women left behind, adapting to new patterns of life and drawing together in the absence of the men. At times funny, at times sad, the play paints a moving and powerful picture of the changes in civilian life during wartime. |
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Director’s notes:Set in Accrington during the first two years of the great War, “The Accrington Pals” are the men from the local volunteer battalion who march, high spiritedly and blindly, off to war leaving countless loved ones behind. May, a tough, hard working individualist and her friend, the young yet worldly wise Eva, are driven to desperation by rumours of disaster and angered by ludicrously optimistic reports in the press. Meanwhile their respective “lovers”, the utopian idealist Tom and the naively optimistic Ralph, recruited into Kitchener’s New Army, recount their experiences leading to the final fateful push,“over the top”, at the Battle of the Somme as they march hopelessly into no-man’s land. Inspired by the experiences of his own family, Peter Whelan paints a vivid picture of the freedoms and horrors of war. Experiences in the trenches are contrasted with those of the women they left behind; adapting to new patterns of life and drawing together in the face of social and sexual deprivation. Simon Ravenhill |
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How the play was conceived….Whelan remembers after reading Martin Middlebrook's "The First
Day on The Somme" one short paragraph stayed in his mind. "It
concerned the town of Accrington, Lancashire which had raised its For Whelan "this was like looking through a pin-hole into the past
and finding a whole vista of humanity revealed in a very unexpected
way. These mothers, wives, daughters and lovers of the
Pals didn't knuckle under sheepishly to authority in the way I had
supposed. They realised perfectly well that there was an "us and
them"' situation with regard to war information. Soldiers and sailors
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